by Dave Simmons

Created on: July 09, 2008   Last Updated: November 11, 2011

I've voted for 'no' rather than 'yes' on this simply because I can't understand why she would bother in the first place. The only thing I can think of is so Rowling could generate a little publicity for the books and generate a few more sales; this would have made sense in a year or two when the books weren't flying off the shelves as rapidly as they were, but to announce such a thing a few weeks after the launch of the final book is incomprehensible.

If it made the slightest difference to the story, it might be more understandable; if Dumbledore's sexuality somehow caused you to reinterpret his actions throughout the series, that might matter. It doesn't, not even slightly. His infatuation with the evil wizard (whose name, frankly, escapes me - He Whose Name Isn't That Terribly Memorable, perhaps) in his youth, and the disagreement they had afterwards,are due to the other's dark leanings. Whether or not there was any bum-fun going on between chapters is pretty irrelevant.

Besides, an author has no business doing this. While they're writing, they have every right to try to make the characters whatever they want. How easily this can be achieved is another matter altogether; anyone who's even tried to write a novel will know that after a certain point, the characters start doing what they damned well please, no matter what you do. But once the book has gone to print, the author has said everything they're going to say. Past that point, they become the property of the reader.

Not in an 'intellectual property' sense, as many plagiarists have found out to their costs. But it is the reader who's immersed in their world who gets to interpret why a character is doing something, what motivates them. If the author is a good one, this should be fairly clear. If it's not, and they have to announce that a character was homosexual or not at a public dinner/meeting/press conference/whichever nosebag they were at the time, it's a sign of poor writing.

If, say, Terry Pratchett (an author who typically outdoes Rowling, in terms of sales and writing quality) stood up and announced one of his main characters, like the Librarian, was left-handed, I'd be amazed. Amazed partly because it would have absolutely no effect on his Discworld books, and secondly because I'd expect better from him than to try to shoehorn in plot elements long after finishing a book.

It could be that the remark was merely an offhand one; if I remember the details correctly, Rowling was simply commenting that while writing the books, she simply considered Dumbledore as gay, and always had. If so, it says more about what makes a good yellow journalism headline than anything about the author. I rather suspect she dropped the G-bomb quite deliberately, though. It's so hard to tell these days which media stories are hysterically generated by the press, and which are fed to the press because they know that kind of reaction will ensue.

Finally, quite a while after all the hubbub has died down: Does it really matter? Has this made anyone who loves the books toss them aside, vowing never to read them again? Has this influenced one gay person (or straight person, for that matter) to buy the books when previously they would never have considered it? Has it in any way somehow promoted or prevented the understanding of human sexuality? Even a tiny bit?

In short, who cares?

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